I have reworked the first part of the story with a few new elements about the characters and changed a few of the details of how the characters finish up in the shop before the policewoman makes her entrance.
This is part of the new first section is the one that involves the shopkeeper`:
This wasn’t the shopkeeper’s first hold up. In fact, over the years there had been a dozen. But only one got reported to the police, and that was only because the robber was shot and killed.
He’d taken a bullet that night, too, which, from the police point of view, made him a concerned citizen simply defending himself.
The rest had been scared off by the double-barrel shotgun he kept under the counter for just such emergencies.
The young punk who came into the shop with his girlfriend had pulled out the pistol and told him if he reached for the shotgun he’d shoot him. The kid looked unstable and he’d backed away.
When the kid collapsed, he should have gone for the shotgun, but instead, he thought he could get to the gun before the girl realized what was happened. She wasn’t an addict and clearly looked like she was only along for the ride. Her expression, when the kid pulled out the gun told him she’d known nothing about her partner’s true intentions.
But, he wasn’t fast enough, and she had the gun pointing at him before he’d got past the counter.
From one pair of unpredictable hands to another.
Like the girl, he was just as surprised when the customer burst in the door, just before closing time.
The situation might have been salvageable before the customer came in the door, getting the girl to go along with the robbery being about money, but there was no denying what the kid on the floor’s problem was.
Damn.
He had to try and salvage the situation simply because there was a lot of money involved, and other people depending on him. He looked at the boy, on the floor, then the girl.
“Listen to me, young lady, you would be well advised to let this man go as he suggests. And, please put the gun down before someone gets hurt. Your friend needs medical help and I can call an ambulance.”
The girl switched her attention back to him. “No one’s going anywhere, so just shut the hell up and let me think.”
The storekeeper glanced over at the customer.
He’d seen him come into the shop once or twice, probably lived in the neighborhood, the sort who’d make a reliable witness, either a lawyer or an accountant. Not like most of the residents just beyond the fringe of respectability.
If only he hadn’t burst into the shop when he did.
I have reworked the first part of the story with a few new elements about the characters and changed a few of the details of how the characters finish up in the shop before the policewoman makes her entrance.
This is part of the new first section is the one that involves Annalisa, and her boyfriend, Simmo:
Annalisa looked at the two men facing her.
Simmo, the boy on the floor, had told her that the shopkeeper would be a pushover, he was an old man who’d just hand over the drugs, rather than cause trouble for himself.
Where Simmo had discovered what the shopkeeper’s true vocation, dispensing drugs to the neighborhood addicts, she didn’t know, but it was not the first place like this they had visited.
She had always known Simmo had a problem, but he had assured her he had it under control. Until a month ago, when he had tried something new.
It had changed him.
The breaking point came earlier that day when, seeing how sick he was, she threatened to leave. It brought out the monster within him, and he threatened to kill her. Not long after he had changed into a whimpering child pleading with her to stay, that he hadn’t meant anything he’d said before.
All he needed was one more ‘score’ to get his ‘shit’ together, and he would do as she asked, and find help.
She believed him.
He said he knew a place not far from the apartment, a small shop where what he needed was available, and said he had the money.
That should have been the first sign he was not telling the truth because she had been funding his habit until her parents cut off the money supply. She suspected her father had put a private detective on to find her, had, and reported back, and rather than make a scene, just cut her off so she would have to come home or starve. Her father was no better than Simmo.
And, as soon as they stepped into the shop, Simmo pulled out the gun,
Instead of the shopkeeper cowered like Simmo said he would, he had laughed at them and told them to get out. Simmo started ranting and waving the gun around, then all of a sudden collapsed.
There was a race for the gun which spilled out of Simmo’s hand, and she won.
That was just before the customer burst into the shop.
It had been shortly before closing time. Simmo had said there would be no one else around.
Wrong again.
Now she had another problem to deal with, a man who was clearly as scared shitless as she was.
This was worse than any bad hair day, or getting out of the wrong side of bed day, this was, she was convinced, the last day of her life.
She heard a strange sound come from beside her and looked down. There was a trickle of blood coming out of his mouth and Simmo was making strange sounds like he was choking.
Any other time she might have been concerned, but the hard reality of it was, Simmo was never going to change. She was only surprised at the fact it took so long for her to realize it.
As for the man standing in front of her, she was safe from the shopkeeper with him around, so he would have to stay.
“No. Stay.”
Another glance at the shopkeeper told her she had made the right decision, his expression said it all. Gun or no gun, the moment she was alone with him, he would kill her.
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And, the story:
Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply just fly away?
Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, i came to the airport to see the plane leave. Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.
But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision. She needed the opportunity to spread her wings. It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.
She was in a rut. Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level, that she, the youngest of the group would get the position.
It was something that had been weighing down of her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, sometimes a flash of temper. I knew she had one, no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.
And, then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere. Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication. It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact she had to entertain more, and frankly I felt like an embarrassment to her.
So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock. We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed the right time.
It was then she said she had quit her job and found a new one. Starting the following Monday.
Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.
I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.
What surprised her was my reaction. None.
I simply asked where who, and when.
A world-class newspaper, in New York, and she had to be there in a week.
A week.
It was all the time I had left with her.
I remember I just shrugged and asked if the planned weekend away was off.
She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.
Is that all you want to know?
I did, yes, but we had lost that intimacy we used to have when she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker but I still had a brain, was what I overheard her tell a friend once.
There’s not much to ask, I said. You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place, and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.
Her immediate superior and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would. And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, that was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.
One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.
So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.
Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you. I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.
Yes, our relationship had a use by date, and it was in the next few days.
I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me, you can make cabinets anywhere.
I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job. It was everything around her and going with her, that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.
Then the only question left was, what do we do now?
Go shopping for suitcases. Bags to pack, and places to go.
Getting on the roller coaster is easy. On the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by the slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, they require a little work to get to the next level, follows by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.
What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.
Our roller coaster had just come or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops at the station.
There was no question of going with her to New York. Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back. After a few months in t the new job the last thing shed want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends new life.
We packed her bags, three out everything she didn’t want, a free trips to the op shop with stiff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.
Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming, that moment the taxi arrived to take her away forever. I remember standing there, watching the taxi go. It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.
So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of plane depart, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.
People coming, people going.
Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just see what the attraction was. Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.
As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.
Well, isn’t it just like you to rain on my parade?
Yes, and don’t we need a lot of rain because of the bushfires that are burning out of control?
Rain is that stuff that falls from the sky, sometimes at the awkwardest of times, like when you leave your umbrella in the car.
And rain can be a problem in sub-zero temperatures and high winds when it almost takes on the form of multiple miniature knives. Rain and snow together, sleep, but that’s something else.
Of course, it could always rain cats and dogs, a rather interesting occurrence if it ever happened.
This should not be confused with the word rein.
As any horseperson would know this is what helps control a horse
But, it doesn’t have to be a horse, it might be that you are told to rein in your attack dog
Or rein in your excesses
Or alternatively, give a person free rein to go about their business.
Then there is reign, that period of time when a monarch rules, and it seems in England women hold the record for the longest reign, Queen Victoria, and Queen Elizabeth II
That’s distinct from the office oligarchs who seem to think they reign over the plebs
We have visited Venice twice, in 2006 and not so long ago.
Not much had changed from visit to visit.
Instead of staying in a hotel selected by a travel agent, the Savoia and Jolanda on the waterfront of Riva Degli Schiavoni, because I’m a Hilton Honors member, more recently we stayed at the Hilton Molino Stucky. It was located on an island, Giudecca, and had its own transport from the hotel to St Mark’s Square for a very reasonable one-off charge for the stay.
On our first visit, we traveled from Florence to Venice. We were advised to take a water taxi to the hotel, not only the most direct route but to see some of Venice from the water. The only drawback, you have to negotiate a price with the driver.
We were not very good negotiators, and it cost 60 Euros.
But, despite the cost, it was worth every Euro because the taxi driver took us by the scenic route, directly from the Station to the doorstep of our hotel. For a first time in Venice, and you want to see it from the water, a water taxi is the best option.
The first time we stayed at the Savoia and Jolanda Hotel, which was at the time quite old, and the room we had, on the ground floor, was comfortable enough, but being November, they had just stopped using the air conditioning, it was still quite warm and at times uncomfortable.
There were better rooms, but this was beyond the knowledge of the travel agent, and one of the reasons we stopped using agents to book hotels.
The most recent visit we had driven down from Salzburg to Venice airport where we had to return the hire car. From there we were intending to take a private water taxi from the airport to the hotel, for an estimated 120 Euros.
We saved our money and took the ACTV public waterbus, from the airport to the hotel, with one stop. It took a little over an hour and was equally as scenic.
Our room in the Hilton was on one of the upper levels, floor four, and had a view of the canal, the large passenger ships coming and going, as well as a remarkable view of Venice itself as far up the canal to St Marks Square in one direction, and the port for the passenger ships in the other.
We got to see three or four very large passenger ships come and go, along with a lot of other craft. I hadn’t realized how busy the waterways, and the Grand Canal, were.
Each evening after a day’s exploring we would end up in the Executive Lounge, and then one of the many restaurants, usually Il Molino for breakfast, and the Rialto Lobby Bar and Lounge for dinner. After that, it was a stroll down the waterfront taking in the night air, and perhaps to walk off the delicious dinner.
I have reworked the first part of the story with a few new elements about the characters and changed a few of the details of how the characters finish up in the shop before the policewoman makes her entrance.
This is part of the new first section that involves Jack:
Jack was staring down the barrel of a gun.
He had gone down to the corner shop to get a pack of cigarettes.
He had to hustle because he knew the shopkeeper, Alphonse, liked to close at 11:00 pm sharp. His momentum propelled him through the door, causing the customer warning bell to ring loudly as the door bashed into it, and before the sound had died away, he knew he was in trouble.
It took a second, perhaps three, to sum up the situation.
A young girl, about 16 or 17, scared, looking sideways at a man on the ground, then Alphonse, and then Jack. He recognized the gun, a Luger, German, relic of WW2, perhaps her father’s souvenir, or more likely a stolen weapon, now pointing at him then Alphonse, then back to him.
Jack took another second or two to consider if he could disarm her. No, the distance was too great. He put his hands out where she could see them. No sudden movements, try to remain calm, his heart rate up to the point of cardiac arrest. No point making a bad situation worse.
Pointing with the gun, she said, “Move closer to the counter where I can see you better.”
Everything but her hand steady as a rock. Only telltale sign of stress, the bead of perspiration on her brow. It was 40 degrees Fahrenheit in the shop.
Jack shivered and then did as he was told.
A few seconds more for him to decide she was in an unpredictable category.
“What’s wrong with your friend?” Jack tried the friendly approach after he’d taken the three steps sideways necessary to reach the counter.
The shopkeeper, Alphonse, who, Jack noted seemed to have aged another ten years in the last few months, spoke instead; “I suspect he’s an addict, looking for a score. At the end of his tether, my guess, and her to get some money.”
A simple hold up that had gone wrong. Wrong time, wrong place, in more ways than one Jack thought, now realizing he had walked into a very dangerous situation. She didn’t look like a user. The boy on the ground, he did, and he looked like he was going through the beginnings of withdrawal.
Oddly, though, Jack had noticed a look pass between the shopkeeper and the girl.
“All you had to go was give us the money, and we wouldn’t be here, now.” She was glaring back at Alphonse. “You can still make this right.”
A flicker of memory jumped out of the depths on Jack’s mind, something discussed at the dinner table with their neighbors, something about the shop as a pick-up point for drugs.
The boy on the floor, he was not here for the money.
Jack thought he’d try another approach. “Look, I don’t want trouble, and you don’t want trouble. I’ll go, forget this ever happened. You might want to do the same.”
The girl looked like she was thinking. The gun, though, still moved between him and the shopkeeper.
Another assessment of the girl; this was not her real home. She was from a better class of people, a different part of town. Caught up in a downward spiral because of her friend on the floor.
Caught in a situation she was not equipped to deal with.
That didn’t bode well for his, or anyone else in that shop right then, health.
The story fleshed out for the second section, discussed in Point of View
Annalisa looked at the two men facing her, a shopkeeper who, despite his protestations, was a dealer, and the other man, a customer scared shitless.
The poor bastard was not the only one scared.
It was meant to be simple, arrive at the shop just before closing, force the shopkeeper to hand over the shit, and leave.
What had happened?
The shopkeeper laughed at them and told them to get out. Simmo started ranting and waving the gun around, then all of a sudden collapsed.
There was a race for the gun which spilled out of Simmo’s hand, and she won. No more arguments, the shopkeeper was getting the stuff when the customer burst into the shop.
This was worse than any bad hair day, or getting out of the wrong side of bed day, this was, she was convinced, the last day of her life.
Her mother said she would never amount to anything, and here she was with a drug addict coming apart because she had been cut off from her money and could no longer pay for his supply, which had led them to this inevitable ending.
She heard a strange sound come from beside her and looked down. Simmo was getting worse, like he had a fever, and was moaning.
If Alphonse had thought his day was going to get any better after the delivery disaster earlier that day, he was wrong.
If he thought he could maintain his real business and his under the counter business with no one finding out, in that he was wrong too. He’s know, inevitably, some useless punk would come and do exactly what Simmo was doing.
It might have been salvageable before the customer came in the door, but now it was not. The customer had heard the words, and given him ‘the look’. A drug addict telling the cops he was a dealer, it was his word against an unreliable addict, but this local chap, he had that air of respectability the cops would listen too.
Damn.
But he had to try and salvage the situation, there was a lot of money involved, and other people depending on him. He looked at the boy, on the floor, then the girl.
“Listen to me, young lady, I have no idea what you are talking about. Please, put the gun down before someone gets hurt. Your friend needs medical help and I can call an ambulance.”
The girl switched her attention back to him. “Shut up, let me think. Shit.”
The storekeeper glanced over at the customer. He’s been in once or twice, probably lived in the neighborhood, but looked the sort who’d prefer to be anywhere but in his shop. More so now. If only he hadn’t burst in when he did. He would have the gun, called the police, and brazened his way out of trouble. Now, that remedy was off the table.
Now he had to deal with the fallout, especially if the girl started talking.
It would be very interesting if duelling was still allowed. There are a few people I’d like to stand toe to toe with, take ten paces, then test my ability to shoot with an old style flint duelling pistol.
What’s this got to do with anything?
It’s where our word of the day comes in. If I lose my nerve, or I know my opposite number is a better shot, my second would have to stand in my place.
It’s, if anything, an older use of the word.
Of course, it mainly means, on one hand, coming second in a race or a competition, not exactly the place you really want to be, simply because no one really remembers who came second.
It plays host to a plethora of statements using second as part of the saying, such as,
Second rate, second hand, even if it had more than one owner, second best.
But then there’s a few more that mean something else like a second look, mainly because you didn’t trust your eyes, second nature, it’s been drilled into you (a rather painful idiom if it truly was) and second sight, though this might not necessarily be a verifiable attribute.
And, of lesser note, I’m not necessarily sure I’m second to none.
On the other hand, and pardon the pun using this definition, it also describes a length of time, very short in fact, and it takes 60 of them to make a minute.
Hang on, it’ll only take a second. Yes, we often use the word in vain. I doubt there is any one of us who could do anything useful in a second.
Apologies now if I have misspelled any street, piazza or any other names.
The first time we arrived in Florence was by train, from Innsbruck in Austria. We had been booked into the Hotel Brunelleschi, based on the fact it was built over part of a 12th-century monastery, it was conveniently located, and was a luxury hotel.
We took a taxi, not knowing how far it was, and found it tucked away in a street, via Sant’elisabetta, not far from Florence’s cathedral, the Duomo. The taxi barely fitted through the streets. First impressions, it was old, second impression, the room we were given was amazing, with a view over the main street, and wafting up from a food shop below, the aroma of newly baked waffles. We had to have one.
Words cannot describe how amazing it was to wake up that first morning and look out at the bright sunshine and blue sky. We were in for a hot day, but that wasn’t going to deter the tourist in us. Of course, after we had a great breakfast. I particularly liked the crispy bacon.
The first place on the list to visit was the Piazza del Duomo, where the cathedral is located, and the Porta del Paradiso. We went into the church, and also did a side trip down into the crypt. We did not climb to the top of Brunelleschi’s cupola. We tried the pizza, and hearing that the gelato was very expensive in the main part of the city, ventured further afield and found a gelato vendor that was inexpensive. As the day was very hot it was a welcome relief.
The Ponte Vecchio, the bridge that crosses the Arno. We walked to the bridge, taking in the views up and down the river before crossing to the other side, then back towards the Piazza Santa Croce. On our most recent visit there was a football competition, Calcio Fiorentino, in progress that had taken over the whole Piazza, and during the day there was a parade where all the teams and others dressed in the historic clothing dating back to the 15th century.
The Galleria dell’Accademia was also high on the list of places to visit, and we left the hotel early as we had heard the queues are long to get in. They were right. We were at the end of a very, very long queue stretching back to Via delgi Alfani. We were in the queue for about an hour and a half and it didn’t seem to move very quickly.
Then some people passing by said that we could go to the Museo Di San Marco, and purchase tickets to enter the gallery at a particular time. We had also read or heard something similar, and, taking a risk we left the queue and went in search. We found it at the Piazza San Marco, purchased tickets for 13:30 and had time to have lunch before turning up at the entrance for our timeslot, and sure enough, with others who had also purchased tickets, we went in.
Just out of curiosity I went back to the queue to see when the people in front of us were, and they still had an hour before gaining admission.
We saw everything that was recommended, including the famous statue of David, though I had a lot of trouble taking a photo when people kept walking in front.
The Piazza Della Signoria has a large number of statues, including another of David, the Marzocco, the symbol of Florence, Il Perseo, the fountain of Neptune, Poseidon, Perseus with the head of Medusa, and a hall of statues adjacent to the Palazzo Vecchio.
Florence is old, the roads are cobbled and narrow, and there are many trails one can follow and discover something new at the end of every twist and turn.
I have to go back, other than the fact I need a new wallet and belt made from Italian leather. My wife loves the purses and handbags, also leather, though the scarves have only recently been added to her list of most wanted items.
But, in reality, I want to simply soak up the atmosphere, relax, eat the pasta and drink the endless supply of Moretti’s.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 